Once upon a dark moon
not so long ago,
I went to see my other side,
the place of lost shadows.

The melancholy pushed me
into another plane.
A life transcending alter,
I did not pass through in vain.

I ventured to the edge
and that was close enough.
It pushed me back to life
before I could give up.

Coming back to consciousness
I was not the same.
My train of thought had shifted,
something in me changed.

Oblivion didn't scare me
when I laid down at night.
My future stopped controlling me
when I turned off the lights.

So, when curiosity strikes you
to venture your unknown,
please proceed with caution,
there's something you should know.

Everything has a price
and you will have to pay.
It takes away a piece of you,
a toll some would say.

I paid the worst of me
but that might not be you.
It could take away your best
if you make your way back through.

Lull my body
dull my self,
    ye good poet of mine;

I could use some lullaby
at this starry night—starry
stars in heavens, creations
from the comforter;
oblivion now seemingly a synonym of
blissful state of a mind;
countless stars—starry are they,
boundless thoughts—wild, rowdy
thoughts and imaginations
un-checked, stimulating,
eager to be loaded and fired,
    and so on, et cetera.

They are crossing the sky
dressed in a hue of midnight.

    I think of my late-night coffee
    to be some reason for this,
    but I'll never be sure, still.

concealment
is just a lie in disguise

Beings of light how shall I make this day?
Oblivion calls me
But i do not wish for it.
Can you free me from its grasp?
What ways shall I find that will spare me from it?
What can I do to sway its force?
Can you give me a sign?
Or a means?
That I might stay whole this day...

I am the acantha bud
with a rootless stem.

Suspended, wet flesh.

Not planted; placed

on an exhausted window sill.

Catatonic:
in vase.

I live in this old room.

Exact: I do not live here.
I am waiting.
Spackled layers and many coats of paint.

Ill-concealed cracks.
Walls that still attempt
a proud face.

My stem aches from holding

this pose.

And the legs of the bed ache in anticipation.

Passing in private anguish.

I think the room is ignoring me and

I sense that the crowing walls yearn
to weep.

I'd like to burst into 1,000 velvet thorns.
To feel the stretch of my life on full display.

Streaks of sunlight beckon a burgeoning future,
but my flower never finds spring.

A stillborn bit of matter.

Months pass on this sill of ruin.

My once sturdy base,

drops my wilted stem,
and my fragile vase.

Shattered bits and splinters.

At last! a new pattern on
the snoring carpet.

I am the vagrant acantha
with a rootless stem.
But you could house all of my existence.

You, the body of infinite sympathies.
A cherished vessel.

Exact: You could house all of existence.

But my infinite oblivion
left you lost and fragmented,
like the shards of

my face.